Rachel Reeves: Brexit made Britain 'poorer, weaker and less secure'

Rachel Reeves has declared that Britain's future should lie inside the European Union, calling Brexit a project that has made the UK "poorer, weaker and less secure".

The statement is her first major intervention since leaving the Treasury when Andy Burnham became prime minister. Writing in the Sunday Times, Reeves, whom Burnham sacked as chancellor, said nobody who worked with her at the Treasury could doubt her pro-European instincts.

"I am proud of the progress we have already made in strengthening our relationship with the European Union. Brexit has made us poorer, weaker and less secure," Reeves said.

She went further on the politics. "There is a debate to be had about our future relationship with Europe, and I welcome Andy Burnham's leadership in facing up to this. No one in the Treasury ever doubted where my instincts were."

What does Reeves want to happen now?

Reeves set a test for her own side. She wrote that it was "incumbent on supporters of our re-entry to make the argument, demonstrate tangible benefits and to get the next steps right".

The demand matters because re-entry is not yet government policy. Labour's 2024 manifesto committed Britain to staying outside the EU's customs union and single market, and to keeping freedom of movement off the table. Reeves is pushing the terms of that debate beyond the manifesto's red lines.

Her position carries weight for an awkward reason. As chancellor, she was one of the first senior ministers to say publicly that Brexit had damaged the British economy and its capacity to grow.

In her Mais lecture in March this year, Reeves said Brexit had "created profound uncertainty, raised new barriers to trade, and leaves Britain facing an additional danger today … The risk that we find ourselves stranded between powerful trading blocs, as globalisation retreats."

What is Burnham's two-stage plan?

Burnham has sketched a sequenced route. Stage one covers changes that fit inside the 2024 manifesto, meaning no customs union, no single market and no freedom of movement. That process formally starts when the prime minister attends the European summit later this month.

The immediate negotiating focus is that summit. Britain aims to seal an agreement easing some trading restrictions plus a youth mobility deal. Burnham has said he wants a long-term and stable relationship with the bloc.

Stage two waits until after the next election. Burnham has called for an open discussion on what deeper change might entail, and he has drawn a distinction between the two paths.

He believes rejoining the single market could be done without another referendum, provided Labour put the commitment in a manifesto. Full re-entry to the EU, by contrast, would in his view require another in-out poll.

Burnham has also called for an "honest discussion" about freedom of movement itself.

How much room does the cabinet have?

The timing of Reeves's article is pointed. At his last cabinet meeting, Burnham told individual ministers not to air their own views on how the government should approach Brexit. He simultaneously argued that the Conservatives' deal with Brussels proved more extreme than what was promised in the 2016 referendum.

Ministerial dissent is real. Reports say some ministers, including Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood, have concerns about a revised deal and its impact on migration.

That leaves the government managing two pressures at once. It must hold its cabinet line ahead of a summit where it wants tangible wins on trade and youth mobility, while the most senior figure it removed from the Treasury now argues publicly for a destination the manifesto explicitly rules out.

Reeves has, in effect, set the benchmark for the re-entry camp: prove the benefits, or the argument stays closed until after the next election.